I have an 8 month old cocker spaniel who at night sleeps in a crate, but unfortunately wakes too early 6ish and starts to howl (I know this isn't early for everyone but an hour of howling every morning is getting every one down). I feel as though I have tried everything from covering the crate with a blanket to keep it dark, I also have another dog 2 1/2 who I have not had any problems with. She is the same regardless of whether poppy is in the crate with her or not. All the family are starting to get really frustrated as we all love her so much but wish she would settle for a bit longer. we have tried ignoring her and i think this is where the problem has stemmed from as we get up at 7am so I suppose in her eyes we are getting up to her because her howling has worked and not because we had to get up anyway. We have tried leaving her out of the crate but she chews the table and wall.
Please help
Nicola

I don't know if this will help, but why don't you get up and take her outside for a pee, bring her back inside (ignoring her otherwise) and putting her back to her bed. Once she gets used to this routine you can gradually change the time by waiting 5 minutes or so each day until she has got used to getting up at the right time. Only remember the clocks go forward an hour next month ;) This means she will be getting you up at 5, not 6, in the mornings

If she's waking early - what time does she get settled down for the night?

our 10week old pup waked us up at 5 - 5.30.  We noticed that she usually went asleep on./by us at around 9pm, then we put her in her basket...she would be up at 5 - 5.30.   Now , we make sure she is up and about until about 10pm has her toliet etc, then she is put away.she sleeps through now until we get up at about 6.30.which is more reasonable.

Thankyou everyone for your help. On reflection she does sleep for most of the evening from about 7pm, only getting up occasionally to follow me to the toilet or into the kitchen. We do play with our older dog on an evening with toys and have tried to get her to join in but she seems really tired in the evening. She usually goes out about 10pm then goes to bed, so really it is not surprising that still being a pup she is full of energy come 6am. maybe as she gets a bit older and is able to stay awake later on a night she might sleep for longer on the morning. It has just come as a bit of a shock as we never had any problems with our 1st dog

Hi there,
I have westies, and the girls are at night in my breakfast room and the two boys are in the kitchen, the dogs do not live in a Kennel but we live within their kennel.
I have had experience when my young male dog just started to bark at about 4 - 5 o'clock in the morning, and first I ignored him and after a couple of weeks I had had enough as he was setting all the dog off into a really good howel, and I did not want to upset the neighbours.  The older dogs do know that I don't approve of this and stop after the first howel but the boy, 10th months of age is still unsettled even when he has been out to releve himself.  I was starting to get tired being disturbed continually when this had been happening for a couple of weeks, so I found that by just banging a newspaper on the table a few times has had a very good result and we are ALL getting our sleep now, and look forward to seeing each other for our 7.30am morning walk.